“Please!” Eira cut him off. “She would never go against the empire. Inalia is a Cerixian down to the bone, loyal and progressive, like the rest of us. She might be a little different, but she’s not a traitor, nor a threat. You know exactly what Nalyon Martell will do if he finds out about her, right?”
The soldier thought about it for a moment, then nodded. Eira smiled.
“Thank you,” Inalia said. “Really… Thank you. I didn’t mean to use my fire earlier. I think my instincts just kicked in. That guy was about to kill me. And… And I killed him.”
She choked up, her eyes filled with tears. She’d never taken a life, and it was going to leave a permanent scar. I knew how that felt. Not everyone could live with such a mark on their conscience, even if it had been in self-defense.
“You did it to survive,” Taeral said to Inalia. “You can’t blame yourself. There was no other choice.”
Inalia didn’t respond. She offered a faint nod, then wiped the tears away and put on a plastic, smiling face. “Anyway. Back to the issue at hand,” she said, after several deep breaths. “What information did you get out of this incident? Because I’m thoroughly confused.”
“You and me both, sister!” Herakles chuckled.
“Listen, I would’ve assumed, at first, that the weirdo cult followed us here,” Taeral concluded. “But they didn’t. These were locals. That much we know for a fact. So, I’m inclined to determine that the cult itself spans more than our side of the In-Between. Cerix is quite isolated, and yet it managed to produce these murderous bastards along with a physical manifestation of the Hermessi. This isn’t random. There’s something going on here. I think Aya was spot on to send us here.”
“Agreed. But I also don’t think the attacks are well-coordinated,” I said. “If they were, these masked fellas would’ve done a better job. They’re trying to stop us, to kill us, but they should know better.”
“Unless they don’t know who they’re dealing with,” Riza suggested. “They might think they can take us on, and they don’t really communicate with cultists from the other worlds. Word about what we did to their ‘colleagues’ would’ve reached Cerix by now, if they did.”
“Okay. So, we’ve got a Fire Hermessi showing up out of nowhere and killing the cultists that were here to kill us,” Raphael chimed in. “I, for one, find this to be the tastiest and most useful morsel so far. Think about it this way: if a Hermessi can ride the stardust and bounce from one planet to another, maybe it’s also responsible for this creepy cult. Maybe the Cerixian Fire Hermessi got wind of it, somehow, and intervened on our behalf.”
Taeral exhaled sharply. “The rogue Hermessi is responsible for the fire fae exploding and the cult. The carved symbols say that much. It might’ve tracked us here, where the local Fire Hermessi jumped in and burned the cultists to a crisp,” he said, following Raphael’s theory. “Yeah. That makes sense. A lot more sense than anything I’ve come up with so far.”
We were on to something, for sure. And the feeling energized my brain into making more connections. I remembered details of our earlier fights, and the way the fire figure had tried to reach out to Inalia. I looked at her, then smiled.
“The Cerixian Fire Hermessi was trying to communicate with you,” I said. “Or, at least, that’s what I think it was all about. He killed the cultists. He stopped them from attacking us.”
“Where else can we find information about the Hermessi?” Raphael asked, nervously glancing around. “I doubt we’ll find anything useful here, and I’m in no mood for a third wave of porcelain-masked maniacs.”
Eira stepped forward and nodded enthusiastically. “I might know someone. Emphasis on might.”
“The fire templar?” Inalia asked.
“Read my mind,” Eira answered with a smirk, then shifted her focus to us. “Someone used to look after this temple, prepare for and hold the worship rituals, and so on. A fire templar. There hasn’t been one in decades here, in Silvergate, but I remember my mom telling me about him. He lived close by, and his house was marked with the symbol of our Fire Hermessi. Everyone knew that a servant of the elements occupied that home.”
“Would he still be alive?” I asked.
“Maybe. But if not, his children might be,” Eira said. “Perhaps he left some journals or something behind. Heck, maybe he passed the knowledge down to his kids. We won’t know unless we go there and see for ourselves.”
Inalia nodded in agreement, then looked over her shoulder and pointed at a painted portion of the far-left corner. “Normally, there would be a door there, leading to the templar’s study. It’s where they kept all the documents, the written lore, the sermons… everything. That one’s bricked up and painted over. I’d assume at least some, if not all, of the scrolls in there were put into the archives—and we still have to make a formal request for access to those. We could try the templar’s place first, then head back to the high chancellor’s residence, as per his instructions.”
“Lead the way,” Taeral said to Eira.
She looked at her uniformed underling, then pointed at the other two, still down and severely wounded. “Stay here. Call for help. Tell them everything that happened—leave the Inalia part out, though. I’ll meet you back at the barracks later.”
“Be careful,” the soldier replied.
She gave him a soft smile, then walked out of the temple. The rest of us followed. If there was a chance we’d get more information from the templar’s children, his house, or the templar himself, I was all for it. However, a cloud of doubt gathered over my head.
I worried our troubles on Cerix were far from over. And I knew, deep down, that those weren’t the last masked lunatics we’d have to deal with. Someone—or something—was desperate to keep us in the dark, while we clawed our way back to the surface, to clarity.
A hand was bound to come down and push us back under, eventually.
Taeral
By the time we turned the corner around the temple and headed toward the templar’s house, we could hear the bells ringing and wheels hurtling across the cobblestone. Armed Forces and medical crews had arrived at the temple to care for the two injured soldiers and collect the insurgents’ bodies—they had their work cut out for them.
Inalia and Eira rushed up the side street, as if their heels were on fire. I was right behind them, with Herakles and Raphael by my side. Varga, Eva, Riza, and Amelia followed. Our crew was quiet, while Eira and Inalia exchanged the occasional word.
“I can feel you judging me,” Inalia said to Eira.
“You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m just surprised you lasted this long without exploding.”
“Oh, come on! You know why I keep this to myself!”
“No one said that’s bad. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out to some remote place, once in a while, and let the fire out,” Eira replied. “What if you’d hurt us, too? Would you be able to live with yourself, then?”
“You’re talking about Inalia’s fire ability, I suppose,” I chimed in, and instantly regretted it. I could’ve come up with a smarter line.
And Eira didn’t forgive me, judging by the cold look she shot at me. “You’re the genius of the crew, huh?”
“Don’t be mean!” Inalia snapped. “They helped us.”
“We’re helping them, too. It’s not like we owe them,” Eira grumbled.
“Remember what Emperor Tulla used to say,” Inalia replied. “Kindness gets you farther—”
“Than brutality. Yeah, I know.”
